Lax controls in laboratories, poor international agreements on harmful pathogens and ignorance among scientists of the risks their research may pose are increasing the danger of terrorists devising biological weapons, according to specialists at a meeting on genetics and terrorism at Edinburgh University. The conference, held by the Economic and Social Research Council's genomics policy and research forum, brought together experts on bioterrorism to discuss ways to reduce the risk of terrorists exploiting advances in biological sciences.

They urged an overhaul in the way scientists work and called for vigilance on the funding and publication of research that might help terrorists manipulate organisms or devise other advanced biological weapons. Their recommendations suggest scientists take mandatory educational courses on the potential threats of research and set up bioterror "hotlines" for lab staff to use if they create a dangerous organism by accident.

The most immediate risks are posed by organisms including anthrax, ebola and salmonella, but rapid advances in genetics have given scientists the power to create lethal viruses from scratch and DNA sequences capable of disrupting the nervous system, the experts said. The techniques will become available to all but the poorest of scientific laboratories, they warned.

"This is not an imminent threat, but it's of sufficient concern that we should be taking action now," said Ronald Atlas, of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. He also criticised disagreement between countries over which pathogens should be restricted for export.

Common pathogens such as salmonella and anthrax have already been used in terrorist attacks but the fear among bioterror experts is synthetic biology, which has given scientists the ability to manipulate organisms on an unprecedented scale. In 2002 scientists at the State University of New York built a polio virus in their lab after buying genetic sequences for the virus by mail order. Last year US army scientists resurrected the 1918 Spanish flu virus, which killed between 20 million and 40 million people.